[Python-ideas] Rewriting the build system (part 2)

[Ryan Gonzalez]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov>
wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The tricky part here is defining the oldest supported version. "To
>> build Python X.Y, you must already have Python ??? or later installed"
>> - how do you pick the minimum? The older that minimum, the more warped
>> the build code has to be
>
>
> sure -- but it seems what's on the table now is: must be buildable by an
> old version of C -- not even C99 which is nominally 16 years old...
>
> So yeah, the build system itself would need to support a "old" python --
> though probably python2.7 would be OK at this point -- sorry, not py3 yet,
> but what can you do?
>
> > If there is an already build python (like OS-X, any general purpose linux
>> > distro, Windows if you don't mind point and clicking the python.org
>> > installer, etc, then it's not really a "bootstrap".
>>
>> No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about trying to
>> build Thunderbird and having to do a bunch of steps where I run this
>> program, then run that, then let it chug its way through stuff, and
>> then eventually it'll start building.
>
>
> It sounds like that build setup suck, yes -- but not sure why that's
> relevant. Clearly we don't want something that ugly. We want something that
> is both easy and robust to configure for new platfroms, etc, and easy on
> the end user to "jsut build" the source. All I"m proposing that is
> requireing a not-very-recent python as a first step is only a big hurdle
> for folks poritn got new platforms -- your use case would be, in
> INSTALL.txt:
>
> """
> 1) You need at least python 2.7 to build this software.
>
> try:
>
> python --version
>
> if it starts up and reports a version greater than 2.7, then you are all
> set. If not, then It can probably be installed with your system package
> manager:
>
> apt_get install python
>
> or similar. On Windows, you can download an installer for Python2.7 from
> python.org
>
> 2) Once a python is working, you can build the this latest version from
> source with:
>
> ./buildme
> """
>
> Of course, there may be options, etc, but that's the basic deal.
>
> And heck, if people REALLY want the ./configure && make && make install dance,
> then we could ship a little configure script that does nothing but call the
> python-based one...
>
> Of course, all this is predicated on there BEING some miraculous
> as-powerful-and-flexible-and-robust-as-autotools-but-much-easier-to-use
> python-based build system.....
>
> One more note: so adding a python dependency is a pain. But the current
> system requires separate stems for Windows and *nix-y systems, and who
> knows what for hypothetical systems that don't support autotools. So maybe
> a python-based build system that worked on all the common platforms, with
> an additional makefile that you have to hand-mangle to bootstrap a new
> platform isn't any more to maintain.
>
>
The best build systems I know in Python are fbuild, Waf, and Meson. Meson
generates Ninja scripts, and Ninja's in C++, so that's out of the question.

I have used fbuild a LOT and can say that, after you get through the small
amount of command-line boilerplate, it works very well. It's also very easy
to extend with host/target compiler differences. Not sure about Waf, but I
do know it does about anything you'd guess.

I guess this narrows the result down to Boost.Build or a Python-based build
system.


> -CHB
>
> --
>
> Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
> Oceanographer
>
> Emergency Response Division
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>
> Chris.Barker at noaa.gov
>
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-- 
Ryan
[ERROR]: Your autotools build scripts are 200 lines longer than your
program. Something’s wrong.
http://kirbyfan64.github.io/
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